Congeries of cross connected concepts
There was piece on official state media (NPR) this morning from a putatively scientific organization that was basically a discussion of the aggrieved mental state of a professional panicer about desalination. There was no actual science content, just expressions of concern, such as it takes energy to run a desalination plant and what will that do to CO2 emissions? But my favorite was noting that desalination produces fresh water and saltier water and what could be done with that salty walter? No possible solution was mentioned, just an expression of concern about the environmental impact of that saltier water. In real life, it’s dumped in the ocean which has the environmental impact of putting the salt back that was taken out of the ocean in the first place. We have to be living in quite pristine conditions if putting salt back in the ocean is a serious concern.
| Harry Eagar Sunday, 05 July 2009 at 14:27 |  |
I am reluctant to accuse you, Guy, of being soft on government boneheadedness, but you’re wrong.
There is a plant in the county that extracts salt from seawater for the salt. The Clean Water Branch will not allow the distilled water that is the residue to be put back into the ocean.
True story.
We do not have any desalination plants where the residue is salt or salty water, but I assume that the same rule will apply if we do.
Props for avoiding the ugly word desalinization, which is what the politicians use out here.
